


Harry Potter vs Percy Jackson rant

by OrganisedNonsense



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Essays, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Opinions, Rants, Wtf is going on here, fanfiction analysis, overanalysing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24962275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrganisedNonsense/pseuds/OrganisedNonsense
Summary: A very long, essay-like rant about why people favour Percy Jackson characters in Harry Potter-Percy Jackson crossovers. I've never seen someone talk about this, which is strange considering there is so much HP-PJO crossover fanfiction. I wrote this all at once in a random fit of rage.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 158





	Harry Potter vs Percy Jackson rant

**Author's Note:**

> A/N So this is just a random rant/essay I wrote in a random fit of rage in the middle of the night and decided to upload it. Sorry if it makes no sense. This will be a one-shot (probably) so don't ask for updates, though I doubt anyone will read this.

When it comes to YA books, there are few that are as popular as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. This means that there have been many comparisons between the two over the years; and despite the extremely different stories, it’s obvious the books have a lot in common. You’ve also probably noticed, if you’ve been in these fandoms for a while, that there is a lot of Harry Potter Percy Jackson crossover fanfiction. In most of these fanfictions though, it’s very clear which characters the writer favours. Though some authors do favour the Harry Potter characters, it’s clear that most prefer Percy Jackson. In this (extremely messy) rant I’d like to discuss why.

Relatability:

The little boy who grew up in a closet is one of the most iconic things in the harry potter series, and while it was tragic, it certainly wasn’t relatable. Sure, it’s important to make your protagonist interesting, but it’s also important that the reader, whoever they are, can on some level relate to them. More children in the world go through childhood trauma than not, but I think it’s important that Percy Jackson’s childhood was far more relatable. Millions of kids grow up with a connection to only one parent, whether that be because of death, abandonment, or just emotional absence, while not many children live in the closet under their aunt and uncle’s staircase. Both Percy and Harry were abused as children, but while Harry was in an extremely unique situation, Percy’s family in The Lightning Thief is a reflection of the households many of the readers are in. Maybe it’s just the different time periods that they were written in, but Percy Jackson’s characters generally are a lot more relatable.

Open Mindedness:

One of the best parts of the Percy Jackson series in my opinion, is how open minded the characters were. It may just be Uncle Rick’s political beliefs, but it’s clear that the characters in Percy Jackson are a lot more open minded than the ones in Harry Potter, who actually seem to show beliefs in the opposite direction (the fat-phobia JK set the Dursleys anyone?). There’s clear distinctions in the Percy Jackson series between who is bigoted and who isn’t, and (at least by the end of the story) there is for sure no bigoted characters that are classed as ‘good’. You could argue that the bigotry is a character flaw, but for that to be true it would have to be acknowledged, have consequences, or be learned from. Harry never faces consequences for, learns from, or even directly addresses his prejudice towards overweight people, Slytherins, or muggles (and yes, he is prejudiced towards them, I’m getting to that). You could argue that the political prejudice is a product of its time, but as Slytherins and muggles are parts of a world JK created, so it really doesn’t make sense that the clear discrimination is never even addressed (and no, I’m not counting cursed child).

Humour:

There’s definitely a few good jokes throughout the Harry Potter series (No need to call me sir, professor), but apart from Fred and George (who are really just comic relief characters that pop in once in a while and talk about their only interest, pranks. Seriously, the most important thing one of the twins did in the story was die. Even Colin Creevy had more relevance to the plot than them), there aren’t many funny characters in Harry Potter. This isn’t just a problem with the overall tone of the book, but it’s also unrealistic considering the main characters are teenagers and you can’t stand near a school for more than 2 minutes without hearing laughter.

The only jokes I really laughed at in the series were Ron’s occasional one liners. Harry Potter definitely has a darker mood than the Percy Jackson series, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be any funny situations. It doesn’t have to be dark and brooding _all the time_. In fact, one of the reasons The Order of the Phoenix was the fact that it was constantly dark. To be clear, I don’t blame Harry’s narration for this, OOP is actually very good at showing the trauma caused by Sirius’ death, but just because Harry is sad, doesn’t mean everyone else is, so I think it really should have used more fun elements to balance out the bad. After all, 500 pages of straight brooding is not much fun to read.

Percy Jackson, however, has a much funnier narrator, which instantly makes it more fun to read. However dark the problem, there’s enough fun in the book to make it both sad and happy, something that Harry Potter, especially in the later books, didn't quite manage. There’s a variety of funny characters, who despite playing the same role of goofballs, manage to be funny in their own unique ways. They are also way more developed than the classic ‘Fred and George’. Percy is extremely pessimistic and angry despite his fun personality, and Leo’s insecurities are emphasised a lot. Both of these characters work on those traits throughout the books, Percy becoming calmer, and Leo becoming more confident. There’s a reason Fred and George are some of the most popular Harry Potter characters, despite having hardly any personality. Generally, readers like funny characters, especially when they actually contribute to the story.

Plot:

In general, it’s a lot easier to write a plot with Percy Jackson characters than Harry Potter ones. There’s lots of characters in Percy Jackson that could cause problems for a plot, I mean, the gods’ main occupation is causing problems. Not only is there a wide selection of people, but there are many different ways they could go about causing problems. There’s a lot of defined dislike and competitiveness between the characters in the Percy Jackson universe, from mild to extreme (Lots of campers don’t like Dionysus, Zeus wants to kill Percy, ect.). Despite all this conflict, the characters frequently interact and change their opinions on one another. This is an extreme contrast to the Harry Potter series, where Harry hates the Slytherins, the Durselys, the death eaters, and Voldemort. His opinions, and the opinions of those around him, rarely change in regards to these people. There is a clear goal from the beginning, and by the end of the series the goal is completed. This is a good thing because it means it’s easy for the reader to follow, but it also doesn’t leave much else to salvage a plot out of if you wanted to tell the story from a different character’s perspective. Really, the only character that has an interesting life in the first few books is Harry.

Real life:

Personally, I found it much easier to imagine Percy Jackson as real than I did Harry Potter. The mist made sense, was well explained, and was much more believable than a bunch of people going around constantly erasing memories. I also preferred the mist as an actual part of the Percy Jackson world, and Hazel’s eventual ability to manipulate it, as something the protagonists couldn’t control. This is very different to Harry Potter, where the wizards are desperate to stop muggles from knowing anything. If you can imagine yourself in the fictional world of a book, it becomes more fun to read. Sure, lots of people imagined going to Hogwarts, but the people there were really less than welcoming in a lot of cases, so it’s fun to add some nicer characters to suit the beautiful world-building.

Good vs evil:

Both Percy Jackson and Harry Potter feature a fight between good and evil, but the lines between the two groups become a lot more blurred in Percy Jackson. Harry Potter has a classic evil overlord villain, with the token motive of taking over the world. While Percy Jackson also has this type of villain, it’s done a lot more realistically. Kronos pulls strings in the background, using a charismatic and well liked person to do his dirty work. His motives make sense, as an old forgotten god he had a taste of ruling the world, and wanted to regain his power. It also makes sense that so many people followed him. He used their bitterness over the olympian’s neglect and convinced them that their lives would be better off without all the drama of being demigods. Most of the characters who follow him are good people, or at least morally grey. Even the monsters have understandable motives. Percy himself contemplates if he’s really on the right side, and is hesitant to kill anyone just for siding with Kronos. This is an accurate reflection of real war, where most of the time the soldiers are similar people under different circumstances. Percy understands that Kronos' army isn’t his enemy, and repeatedly does everything in his power not to hurt them. 

Harry Potter however, has very clear good and bad sides. Even the morally grey characters like Snape aren’t morally grey because they joined the death eaters for good reasons, it’s because we don’t know how much they agreed with each side. Voldemort's motives and reasoning is fairly bland seeing as it’s just ‘I hate muggleborns so much I’m going to devote my entire life to killing them all and then taking over the world because I like power.’ There is absolutely no question from Harry and his friends that all death eaters are bad. Which is fair because it’s so unbelievably unrealistic anybody would ever choose to join them. Voldemort was hardly charismatic, nor did he have any convincing points, so it’s a wonder he ever even got one follower. There’s nothing actually in it for the death eaters, and given their greedy nature it seems improbable they would devote their lives to it. Sure, they were desperate to get rid of muggle borns, but there’s no way that many people would put their money, freedom and lives at risk just to get rid of them. We need to chuck some Percy Jackson characters in the mix and blur the lines a little to make it interesting.

Diversity: 

Here it is. The part you’ve all been waiting for. The clearest distinction between why people prefer Percy Jackson characters over Harry Potter ones. Diversity is one of the most important parts of a book, because if everything was the same throughout the entire story it would be boring. The only books that make everything the same do it to point out how dumb that is. One of the things Percy Jackson is credited for is the huge range of diverse characters, which make the story much more realistic compared to Harry Potter. I won’t go too far into the diversity of Percy Jackson, because most of it is pretty obvious.

As a fairly privileged person even I find it hard to relate to any of the Harry Potter characters. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re fleshed out, but they actually seem pretty flat and cliché to me. The characters don't even seem similar to people you would meet in real life, and just seem somewhat off. None of the teenagers act like teenagers, and the adults are all terrible at their jobs. Everyone is entirely fine with sending their children away for the entire year to wreak havoc in a castle almost empty of adults and them getting them back for a month, before sending them off again. If that doesn’t give you an idea of the type of strangeness these characters exhibit, I don’t know what will. I know in the movies there’s a few non-white characters, but seeing as they’re never explicitly described that way, it seems like JK just added that in as the world got more progressive. 

Then there’s the problem of our female protagonists, Hermione, Ginny and Luna. I think it’s strange that JK identifies as a feminist when her books were so sexist towards female characters that exhibit stereotypically female traits. This is shown whenever Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil and Cho Chang come into the story. Cho is characterised as bad when she shows emotions, and good when she gets over it. Lavender Brown’s feminine traits make her clingy and annoying, but fighting with Dumbledore’s army makes her better. Hermione is too smart to be bothered with girly things. Ginny is tough because of her brothers. Though this doesn’t happen with all the female characters (Fleur Delacour, my favourite character, for example. Though even with her it seemed like she was good ‘despite being feminine’ instead of being good and feminine), it certainly happens often enough not to be coincidental. 

That’s why I really liked how Rick Riordan created charm-speak, and had Aphrodite and Piper use femininity as a weapon instead of it being considered a bad thing. Whether you're feminine, masculine, both or neither, it doesn’t determine how good of a person you are. There are lots of traditionally feminine traits that are good, and lots of traditionally masculine traits that are considered bad, and vice versa. I honestly don’t think we really need to gender personality traits the way we do, but it’s unfair to paint some traits in a bad light just because they’re attributed to a supposedly weaker gender.

Arrogance:

The thing I think makes people hate Harry Potter characters more than anything else is rather ironic. Harry is painted as the most selfless person ever, but in reality the biggest threat to him, and the rest of the wizarding world, is arrogance. Yes, the very thing we hated Snape for pointing out in Harry, was the same thing we all secretly hated wizards for. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just pick up any Harry Potter book and turn to a random page; I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of it. I always found it strange that Harry and his friends hated the death eaters for thinking muggles were stupid, when they themselves seemed to think that too. Though most of the good characters don’t entirely hate muggles, they seem to have the same mentality of ‘I’m above muggles because I can do magic.’ Even Ron, who is portrayed as insecure, has this mindset. This especially annoying considering, and I say this with most love for these poor people as humanly possible, that wizards are dumb as shit. Like their education system is a hot mess and they haven’t evolved since the middle ages.

That’s not to say you can’t have arrogant characters, it’s a perfectly reasonable flaw. Hell, it was Annabeth’s flaw and we all still love her. However, if every single character is unbelievably arrogant as they are in Harry Potter, it gets annoying. They also consistently remark about how stupid specifically non-magic people are, and are never showed that they are wrong. They are even proven right on some occasions. Just a general tip: If your entire audience is muggles, you probably shouldn’t insult muggles so often. Honestly, I wouldn’t even want to meet some of the Harry Potter characters just because they see themselves as above me.

The Percy Jackson books however, show nearly no prejudice against those that aren’t part of their world. And the characters that do hate on mortals get flung into the sun. Some normal people, like Rachel, even join throughout the adventure. Percy’s mother is a mortal, Paul Blofis is a mortal, hell, all the demigods' parents are mortals and we still love most of them. Lots of the skills the demigods need are accessible to practice in real life, while all the skills wizards used are very specifically NOT FOR MUGGLES.

By taking away their equality to muggles, JK made the Harry Potter characters less likeable to normal people. No one wants to be friends with people that constantly act like you’re below them. Despite most probably more powerful than wizards thanks to a wider variety of skills, the demigods remain similar to normal people, which is why it would be so funny to see the Harry Potter characters be taken down a notch by the Percy Jackson ones. You’re reading about the people you relate to absolutely obliterating the people who constantly demean you, and it’s a great feeling.


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